Case: China - Africa cooperation

Thursday, June 7, 2007
NDJAMENA, Chad: When I last visited this country, in the late 1990's, watching CNN at a French-run hotel here, or for that matter in many former French colonies in the region, meant carrying a screwdriver and readjusting the television's tuner to have some choices beyond French-language fare.

Less than a decade ago, the French claim on this region was still so strong, and Africa's importance to France's view of its own place in the world correspondingly so, that the French were paranoid about expanding American influence on the continent. This went so far as to interpret the American-aided ouster of Zaire's longtime dictator, Mobutu Sese Seko, as Washington's bid to supplant France in Africa.

Amid such a climate, even CNN was regarded in Africa by the possessive French as an arm of an encroaching American empire to be held at bay.

Imagine my surprise then, arriving in Ndjamena late at night on a visit from China, when I turned on my television at the French-run Sofitel Hotel to find that the program blaring from Channel 1 was a starchy variety show in Chinese, courtesy of that country's state broadcaster CCTV.

The point here is not to lament the arrival of the Chinese in what has for so long been a pillar of the economic, military and political empire that France has labored to maintain in this part of the world. It is rather to pronounce the inevitable conclusion of its demise.

Virtually wherever one looks in French-speaking Africa today, one finds evidence of a postcolonial policy in tatters, and more startling still, given the tenacity of French claims over the decades, an open sense of failure, of exhaustion and of frank resignation.

There was a time, not long ago, when virtually every car on the street in France's cloistered African client states was French, when no big deal was let without a French contractor's securing a big payday, and where the downtowns of African capitals pulsed with French businesspeople and "cooperants," or aid workers.

Fast forward to the present, and here in Chad what one finds is a U.S.-based oil multinational, Exxon, running the country's biggest and most lucrative business, with Chinese companies investing heavily to match or surpass it.

Despite the recent oil wealth, Chad seems poorer and far more decrepit than when I first visited more than 20 years ago. Nowadays, the only French cars rolling on Ndjamena's dusty streets are battered old taxis of that vintage. All the new vehicles are Japanese.

From oil to telecommunications, all the big new investments seem to be Chinese. And to the extent there is any construction going on, as in so much of the continent today, it is Chinese companies landing the contracts.

A reminder of the French presence comes every morning with the roar of fighter jets that take off from a military base at the edge of town. Americans and Chinese seek riches, Chad gets ever more corrupt, and by appearances poorer, and puzzlingly, even to itself nowadays, France is left holding the bag, maintaining a military base that is probably the only thing that stands between this country and outright warlordism.

"Why are we still here?" said Fran&ccedil;ois Barateau, the first counselor at the French Embassy here. "By na&iuml;veté, by nostalgia, no doubt, out of solidarity with Africans. I think we're here because we've always been here."

The diplomat went on to make a startling admission: "It must be recognized that 20 to 30 years of cooperation have not produced many results." From there, just as remarkably, he lamented the fact that the U.S. Agency for International Development was not present in Chad, Britain has no embassy, and that other traditional donor countries, from Japan to Switzerland, have only small, symbolic operations.

"Nowadays it is the Chinese who are coming, and I guess we'll see," Barateau said with a sigh.

Chad, in fact, is anything but an anomaly. From next door in the Central African Republic, to Ivory Coast, once Paris's proudest showcase, France's positions in Africa have been overtaken by chaotic events and by competitors, most pointedly of late the Chinese, who recognize a good vacuum when they see one. Here and there, through the deployment of troops, France has been able to hold the line against disorder, if barely, but a country that for so long punched above its weight has proved utterly incapable of helping its African clients move forward.

How did things reach this pass? During the long tenure of Jacques Chirac, France underestimated Africans and China alike, while mistaking America as its rival in a part of the world where Washington has never had grand ambitions or even much vision.

Chirac talked down democracy on the continent as a frivolous luxury and coddled many of its most corrupt dictators, the only conditions for entree at the &Eacute;lysée Palace were chummy personal ties, flattery of France and business for the clutch of big French companies that have done well for themselves on the continent by hewing close to power.

In the French world, this ruinous condominium, of French politicians who support corrupt African leaders while pushing business deals for their friends, is known as FranceAfrique, and it has cost Africa and France dearly.

Countries like Gabon and Congo Republic and Ivory Coast - one could go on and on - have squandered generations of wealth and development largely because of it. Chirac is gone, and his successor as president, Nicolas Sarkozy, says he is turning the page on FranceAfrique. But France seems morally and economically exhausted by the experience.

Paris's erstwhile clients, meanwhile, are turning to China, whose lack of interest in democracy or even governance should be troubling, but for now seems refreshing, because its business-people bring suitcases of fresh cash and little hypocrisy.

FranceAfrique has lessons for China, too, however: no durable interests can be secured on African soil where institutions are neglected and profit and flattery are the only considerations.

This article suggest that China already replaced France as Africa's new 'colonial power'.

The biased article ignore the fact that big proportion of African resources exported to the western nation!

The truth is...

Chinese Commerce Minister Bo ** on Monday retorted accusations that China's cooperation with Africa is a practice of "new colonialism", saying the African people will never welcome colonialists to plunder their resources.

"Some African leaders believe it is China's entry into Africa and China's increasing trade with the continent that have helped some African resources show their true market values," said the minister at a press conference held here on the sidelines of the national legislature's annual full session.

"This means that things have changed now in Africa because the Chinese are there doing some normal and rational deals and offering reasonable market prices," said the minister.

Bo recalled his African tours accompanying Chinese President ### and Premier Wen Jiabao, saying that wherever the Chinese leaders went in Africa, they received warm welcome from the African people.

"I believe, the cheerful crowd, not organized by the government, will never welcome colonialists in high glee, nor will they welcome people from the other parts of the world to come to plunder their resources," he said.

Trade and economic cooperation between China and Africa has been growing rapidly in recent years, which culminated in the Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation held last November.

At the Beijing Summit, Chinese President Hu Jintao announced the Chinese government's eight steps to forge a new type of China-Africa strategic partnership, which include doubling its 2006 assistance to Africa in three years, providing 3 billion U.S. dollars of preferential loans and 2 billion dollars of preferential buyer's credits to Africa in three years, and setting up a China-Africa development fund of 5 billion dollars to encourage Chinese companies to invest in Africa.

Over the past decades, China helped build 19 schools, 38 hospitals and several stadiums with 760,000 seats in Africa, Bo said, citing statistics of the Commerce Ministry which is responsible for China's foreign aid.

"China did all this out of sincerity, as well as the friendly feelings and sentiments it has developed toward Africa over the past decades," Bo said.

But some people have criticized China, saying that China's operation in Africa is only for resources and Chinese loans have put new debt burdens on Africa, and accusing China of pursuing "new colonialism" in Africa.

Refuting criticism on China's oil cooperation with African countries, Bo said that statistics show China's share of Africa's total oil export last year only stood at 8.7 percent, compared with 36 percent for Europe and 33 percent for the United States.

"If an 8.7-percent share could be suspected as an act of plundering resources, then what about 36 percent and 33 percent?" he asked.

In history, the Chinese people had suffered a lot from colonialists, and the country had never tried to colonize any foreign land even when it was in the period of great strength and prosperity, said Bo.

When Zheng He, a senior official of the powerful Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), made his seven epic sea voyages in 1405-1433 to many places extending from the South Pacific to remote Africa, he only brought back one giraffe.

"Chinese at that time, including the emperors, only wanted to safeguard their own land and had never attempted to colonize any foreign land," said Bo.

Chinese entrepreneurs at modern times, unlike their Western counterparts, seem to be reluctant to go overseas and do business in foreign countries due to their traditionally strong affection toward family and homeland, said the minister.

This explains why China has attracted more than 60 billion dollars of foreign investment while investing only 10 billion dollars in other countries and regions, he said.

BALI, Indonesia - The United States will come up with its own plan to cut global-warming gases by mid-2008, and won't commit to mandatory caps at the U.N. climate conference here, the chief U.S. negotiator said Saturday.

"We're not ready to do that here," said Harlan Watson, the State Department's senior climate negotiator and special representative. "We're working on that, what our domestic contribution would be, and again we expect that sometime before the end of the Major Economies process."

That process of U.S.-led talks was inaugurated last September by President Bush, who invited 16 other "major economies" such as the Europeans, Japan, China and India, to Washington to discuss a future international program of cutbacks in carbon dioxide and other emissions blamed for global warming.

Environmentalists accuse the Bush administration of using those parallel talks to subvert the long-running U.N. negotiations and the spirit of the binding Kyoto Protocol, which requires 36 industrial nations to make relatively modest cuts in "greenhouse" gases.

The United States is the only major industrial country to have rejected Kyoto and its obligatory targets. The U.S. leadership instead favors a more voluntary approach, in which individual nations determine what they can contribute to a global effort, without taking on obligations under the U.N. climate treaty.

Watson's comments reaffirmed that the Bush administration views its own talks as the main event in discussions over climate change.

The European Union, on the other hand, has committed to binding emissions reductions of 20 percent by 2020. Midway through the two-week Bali conference, many of the more than 180 assembled nations were demanding such firm commitments from Washington as well, as the world talks about a framework to follow Kyoto when it expires in 2012.

"It would be useful for Annex I, non-Kyoto countries" — code for the U.S. — "to indicate what level of effort" they'll make, said M.J. Mace, a delegate from the Pacific nation of Micronesia, whose islands are threatened by seas rising from global warming.

The conference's main negotiating text, tabled for debate on Saturday and obtained by The Associated Press, mentions targets, but in a nonbinding way.

Its preamble notes the widely accepted view that industrial nations' emissions should be cut by 25-40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 to help head off climate change's worst impacts — expanding oceans, spreading droughts, dying species, extreme weather and other effects.

Even mentioning such numbers in the conference's key document may set off renewed debate next week, when environment ministers and other ranking leaders join the talks, which are meant to launch a two-year negotiation for a post-Kyoto deal.

Delegates here made progress in the first week on such secondary matters as establishing a system for compensating tropical forest nations for reducing deforestation, a major source of carbon emissions. They're expected to approve work on measuring forest cover, emissions and related factors.

"I've observed a strong willingness on the part of countries to get a successful outcome in Bali," the U.N. climate chief, Yvo de Boer, told reporters in assessing the first week.

American negotiator Watson said the Bush administration is planning probably four more meetings in the Major Economies series before a "leaders' meeting" in mid-2008 presents a final outcome.

Asked how the U.S.-organized process would complement the U.N. treaty talks, he said, "We think if we could get agreement among these 17 economies, or a good portion of them anyway, that would certainly contribute to that discussion in terms of any sort of interim goals or targets that might be discussed."

But he acknowledged it remained unclear how the two "tracks" would merge.

For one thing, there's no guarantee the Europeans, for example, would fully join in what is likely to be a voluntary emissions regime. And as Bush's White House term nears its end, the rest of the world may be looking instead for a fresh start under a new president less resistant to binding international cooperation. Democratic and some Republican presidential hopefuls favor mandatory reductions.

The U.N.'s De Boer, in fact, implied that the world ought to wait before debating binding targets.

"I really hope that that is a discussion that will be taken up toward the end of that two years rather than here," he told reporters.

The talks to follow Bali would also attempt to draw China, Brazil and other fast-developing economies — all exempted from binding reductions under Kyoto — into some arrangement whereby they would slow growth in their emissions.

___

Associated Press Writer Zakki Hakim contributed to this report.

Look at this, in almost every issue where the US doing wrong, they always mentioned countries they don't like. The former bitch-controlled Associated press and their cronies dragging China when the US become target of environmentalists, unwilling to focus on the topic of the condemned US. This coordinated effort of political media campaign only reveal the what so called US 'free-media' still have preferences and prejudice in reporting.

And how they have proven to be fools

Chao-baby comes out with this ludicrous statement to defend 21st century pollution.

Originally posted by wchao37 at 2007-11-9 12:02
Nobody cared to watch over London's coal-fired factories or their child chimney sweepers, nor those of other places using child labor in places like New York and Chicago during the early 1900s. ...

I wonder if the Wanchai-wanker has considered that since the 1900s we have actually learned something about pollution and global warming ?
Now that we know that this pollution can result in long term global damage, we should be doing something about it.

Next the maniacal medico has a go at Soapdodger.

Originally posted by wchao37 at 2007-11-9 18:21
No sweat, I believe you've hit a nerve here. Look at this guy's hysterical reaction. ...

Soap provided a point by point rebuttal of NW's post. Far from the hysteria we see from Chao-baby.

And this might well be the Piece de resistance.

Originally posted by wchao37 at 2007-11-9 18:51Another case example
They are now saying Chinese toys contain ecstasy-like drug. Look at this Guardian piece:

Before he even knew the facts, Chao opened his fat gob and went off frothing at the mouth.
The only thing he got right was that it wasn't ecstacy, it was the far more dangerous GHB drug instead.
We now know that the Chinese manufacturer has apologised for supplying these childrens toys with a dangerous substitute chemical for that which they were supposed to have used.

Northwaste goes on ...

Originally posted by northwest at 2007-11-10 19:01
I'm not talking what is false, I'm talking about fairness.

It's also true that tiny nation like Samoa also pollute the earth, same as Laos. But why they emphasize China's? simply because only China has the potential to neutralize US influence in this region.

Samoa, for goodness sake. The whole of Samoa wouldn't pump out as much pollution as a small Chinese town.
China is emphasised because it is a major world polluter on a gross basis.
I agree, on a per capita basis it pollutes a lot less than most developed western nations, and I do agree that China needs more leeway than Australia and the USA because it needs to lift a lot of people to a better standard of living. However now that we know that global warming is a big problem, and will be for China too, we've all got to do our bit. That's why the previous Australian government (the Howard Government) already planned to work with China to create cleaner coal technology so that China's coal would create less pollution.

Well, I think I have done enough damage to the fragile ego of Chao and NW for the moment !